Not Another AIDS Filmhttps://notanotheraidsfilm.com
The Everyday Risk of HIV/AIDS Treatment and Care
Thu, 22 Nov 2018 12:14:48 +0000 en
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1 http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngNot Another AIDS Filmhttps://notanotheraidsfilm.com
A little teaserhttps://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/12/01/a-little-teaser/
https://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/12/01/a-little-teaser/#respondThu, 01 Dec 2016 09:12:53 +0000http://notanotheraidsfilm.com/?p=830More A little teaser]]>1st December is World AIDS Day and we thought there could be no better time to reflect on the lives of 65% of the cast of PILI living with HIV and that of everyone living with HIV around the world.

To mark this day we have released a teaser trailer of the film, just click away on the link below.

Whatever happens next with PILI, nothing will beat what happened last week with the screening of the film to the cast and communities where it was shot. As with all endings, the return to Tanzania was filled with drama and tension, laughter, and a lot of hugs and gossip. It was without doubt one of the most overwhelming highlights of my career.

All the unpleasantness of government bureaucracy and crew blackmail and threats evaporated at the first shout of ‘Sofia’ from Siwazurio (‘Ana’) as I arrived back in Miono. Over two days I would be going about my business setting up the screening, hear my name called, and turn to see one of the actresses running towards me with their arms outstretched. This was both lovely and hilarious as Faridi (‘Ibrahim’) nearly knocked me out when he ran and jumped into my arms, Mwanaidi greeted me in a gigantic hug with the phrase ‘I got married and you got fat,’ and baby Charles followed his Mum Sesilia by hugging my leg and then promptly burst into tears when he looked up and saw who the leg belonged to. I sat with Bello (‘Pili’) and Sikujua (‘Zuhura’) and caught up with all the local goings on, how all the cast and crew were and what they planned to wear to the screening (Sikujua turned up with a full ponytail, Bello went for her favourite: the red dress, Sesilia put her hair in bunches, Mwanaidi stuck with her classic CM head dress and Siwazurio kept in real in her peer educator t shirt).

The screening itself was something else. At 6.30 the crowd looked like this:

Early audience

By 7pm when the film was due to start the crowd doubled. There was a child riot to the right of the screen as my friend Duncan became the mandazi (local doughnut) pied piper. Directly ahead of the screen sat the local Doctor from the CTC and a crowd of people on benches. The main actors sat on chairs to the left. Behind the main benches people stood. Behind those standing people sat on shoulders. Once the film started, a massive group of school children joined at each side. Halfway through the audience would be lit up with the lights of motorbikes and buses as more people arrived to watch. As the film played I would walk around the back and see more and more pockets of people who had turned up to watch. I started to count and stopped at 500 people. I have never seen anything like it.

People clapped excitedly when Pili danced with Ibrahim and sang along to Peter Msechu. They laughed at every scene that featured Ana. When one of the Doctors in the film looks up there was a roar of joyous laughter as everyone realised he was played by local legend Justin. Perhaps the biggest cheer was at the mention of Juma Nasolo, the snake man who died earlier this year. At the end I pulled all of the actresses to the front to applaud them, we were then mobbed by children, all proclaiming Faridi and Yaridi (who play Pili’s son) the best actors of the whole thing.

The final bow

The best bit was not just the audience’s reaction to what they were seeing, but seeing the actors themselves laugh along and smiling throughout. Of all the audiences we would show the film to this was not only the biggest but the most important: if the women didn’t like the final film then it would all be for nothing. All looked proud of what they had achieved and beamed throughout the screening and at the end.

The morning after the Miono Mega event we conducted a bijou screening in Makole – the location for Pili’s house by the side of the busy road. This screening was to thank Mr Karibu and his family for being so awesome and patient when we took over their homes for 5 weeks. The screening was much smaller at 30 people and was inside because of time constraints but it was no less entertaining. The mention of Juma Nasolo again got an applause, everyone got a kick out of seeing themselves, and of course thought Ana was hilarious. One woman in the picture below filmed the entire thing on her phone. If there is a sign your film is any good it’s if it is bootlegged. I saw a few people filming parts of the Miono screening but assumed they wouldn’t be able to capture the whole thing, but I have to put it to the Makole woman, she never put her phone down for the full 80mins!

Spot the bootlegger

Now I’m back in the UK the trip felt far too short. It was not quite perfect as Director Leanne withdrew over safety concerns following on from threats received 24hrs prior to our departure which also meant I couldn’t invite Jackson and Anitha to the screening. But as endings go it was as glorious as I could have hoped for. I didn’t want to say goodbye to the women as this time around I have no fixed plans to be back, however as Sesilia said to me mountains and rivers mean nothing when you’re family and this wasn’t the end.

What happens next with PILI is now in the hands of film festival programmers. We are looking to get an international premiere early next year at a film festival. This is ambitious given we have a cast of unknowns, no production company, first feature of Director, and no industry muscle. But then no-one thought we could make a feature film with women working in the shamba living on less than $2.50 a day on a research budget. With PILI anything is possible.

The completion of a project is rarely accompanied by fireworks or applause but usually an email confirmation or the handing over of a piece of work to an administrator. The completion of a project is often weirdly anti-climatic, especially when the end takes so many tweaks and is all too often nearly-finished. I’ve been here before, anyone who has done a PhD knows it’s never finished until it’s finished finished (there should be a guide on this circulated to friends and family of PhD students). And so it is with the completion of PILI. On Friday I collected the DCP hard drives from Malcolm’s offices in Soho (shout out to Thank You Mam for all your post-production needs) only to find out this morning I need to take them back as Malcolm spotted a problem that is now fixed. But to all intents and purposes, PILI IS FINISHED!

My work on the project is of course not finished as we still need to secure a premiere and distribution but for me the hard bit is done: I have made a film.

When I started this blog I had no idea how unpleasant aspects of the process would be. How difficult it would be to secure a film permit, how many conversations about money I would have to have, or that I would be publicly threatened and blackmailed. I didn’t know the difference between a board and a moose bar, a foley artist from a focus puller. I now know how to produce a film from start to finish and how to deal with the 1000 wobbles along the way, and that with perseverance, a budget, good people, and a plan you can do it.

I also have a new appreciation of mum blogs. Being a child free woman I had discounted these as spaces in which women unfairly compare themselves to each other during an exhausting and emotionally crazy period of their life. I now understand that sometimes you need to write things down during exhausting and emotionally crazy periods of your life and having a blog to help get things off your chest and reflect on the process can be cathartic. To all Mum bloggers: sorry for discounting you, in solidarity.

On Wednesday we’ll celebrate finishing PILI with a closed screening in London for UK crew, sales agents, distributors and friends and family. I’m feeling nervous and excited about the prospect, but also looking forward to being the first time I can sit back and think ‘We did it.’

This will be my penultimate blog post before a very exciting, final goodbye. I could give you a hint but no-one likes to ruin a good ending.

]]>https://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/09/19/completed/feed/0sophierharmanpineapplesAre we there yet?https://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/09/02/are-we-there-yet/
https://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/09/02/are-we-there-yet/#respondFri, 02 Sep 2016 09:18:16 +0000http://notanotheraidsfilm.com/?p=747More Are we there yet?]]>

With anything big – writing a book, completing a PhD, finishing a feature film – the last bit always seems the longest. Every time you think you’re finished there’s something small and faffy that means you’re not finished. PILI is pretty much finished. The sound is good, the grade looks good, the credits (of which there are comically few but for a whole list of extras from all the buses in the film) are done. The film is done, but for a few faffy bits.

Colourist Malcolm, DOP Craig, Director Leanne, Agueda and me all watched PILI back in the Soho Screening rooms earlier this week. This was meant to be the final sign-off. However as soon as we started watching it we noticed the film was distinctly darker than it had been graded. No-one knew why until Malcolm realised that something to do with the subtitles (technical bit that I missed) had made everything darker. The solution – he would take off the subtitles and we would start again – et voila! One good looking film.

If you ask me is the film finished, I will continue to say yeah pretty much (my mantra of the last 10 days). I’m off on holiday next week and when I come back the film will have been signed off by Leanne and I will have a nice collection of DCP packages waiting for me on another load of hard drives (how many hard drives does one project need?!) to send off to film festivals.

Jaws without the derrrr dum, derrrr dum wouldn’t be half as tense (not that I know, too scared to watch it) and Apocalypse Now without Ride of the Valkyries wouldn’t have made it a definitive war film (according to me, with no film critic credentials), and PILI without the excellent work of Tom, Oscar, Tim, Max, Paul and Simon would not be as dramatic.

Watching PILI with the sound edit is a completely new experience. The dissonance of the insects and nature and the composition from Tim builds the tension in the film to the point I was squirming when sat in the final sound mix. One scene I was unsure about is now miles better and makes the hairs on my arms prickle. The music of Shaa and Peter Msechu sound super when they kick in, even though Peter’s song sticks in my head for hours after hearing it. And Tom has done an awesome job of covering up the drunks and hair salon that I begged/deployed Jackson to work his magic/paid to be quiet when shooting. Honestly the work of the sound team never ends.

I also discovered this week (after my colleague Tim was keen to find out) that our foley artist – Paul Hanks – is one of the best in the game, and according to font of all film knowledge IMDb worked on Casino Royale. PILI and James Bond: the similarities are uncanny – famous/unknown lead actor; well-resourced franchise/budget film-making from first time Producer; well-resourced stunts/erm stunts – okay, there are some differences, but main thing is despite these differences in budget we still haven’t compromised on quality and I think Barbara Broccoli should really consider Leanne for Bond Director when Sam Mendes steps down.

With the sound edit finished the film feels cohesive as sound and aesthetic combine beautifully to tell the story. Next week we’re into a cinema for final last minute checks before it gets sent off to become a DCP package to send off to film festivals. And then, the film is done and the scary part of showing people begins.

]]>https://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/08/26/sound-edit-insect-dissonance-and-007/feed/0sophierharmanColouring and the importance of Fonthttps://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/08/23/colouring-and-the-importance-of-font/
https://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/08/23/colouring-and-the-importance-of-font/#respondTue, 23 Aug 2016 14:55:36 +0000http://notanotheraidsfilm.com/?p=732More Colouring and the importance of Font]]>

In a dark, dark (ish room), at the bottom of a dark, dark house (not at all), in a dark, dark Soho street (actually blazing sunshine) PILI is being shaped, stabilised, and warmed up by the super Colourist Malcolm Ellison in the company of Director Leanne. This morning I was allowed into the dark, dark room to see the work on the grade thus far and more excitingly for a geek like me, discuss the font for the credits.

As with most things PILI, you trust a professional to do the job and they make things awesome. Heads have been ‘shaped’ to make them more defined, some colours have been warmed up, others toned down, any slight errors (hello camera shadow!) have been corrected and the continuity of colour is starting to flow.

As with the sound edit (post to follow!), I am learning that you need to have a super eye for detail and pay a great deal of attention to be involved in post-production. People see random catches of light and hear slight squeaks that seemingly pass me by. This can be embarrassing when often as the new person in the room someone turns to you and asks, ‘did you catch/see that?’, ‘erm, no really didn’t notice/yes slightly/gah! Don’t ask me!’ Post-production is all about the tweaks and details.

The only thing note I had to offer today was a pretty lame, erm sometimes the characters in daylight look more Sudanese than Tanzanian. An important point, after all the film is set in Tanzania, the actors are Tanzanian, and the actors’ skin is lighter than it appears in some parts, so important to keep the colour true to their skin as much as possible (note this is not me being some weird skin-lightening, whitening person, I think we can all agree that would be not cool). I didn’t notice any of the small things Leanne did, and I oo’ed when Malcolm got his shape thing up on screen (I am sure there is a technical word for this, but I am going with the Iron Man Mask shape thing).

Malcolm will continue to tweak away this week, shaping up some more, and colouring the continuity with the plan to screen the film for the last tweak opportunity in a real cinema next Tuesday. Readers, I can see the end.

Director Leanne’s short film about Ebola health workers has been nominated for the Conscious Good Humanitarian Film Festival. This is excellent news and reflects Leanne’s commitment to and collaborations with the people of Freetown. Leanne and I met because of Ebola. It was her work and focus on the everyday experiences and contribution of Sierra Leoneans that made me want to work with her (and her mega talent obvs!).

A lot of these experiences and the continuing impact of Ebola on people’s lives can be overlooked as the global health world moves on to issues of Zika and Yellow Fever. Leanne’s film ‘Three best friends’ seeks to correct this.

This film deserves to win because it is 1) very good; 2) tells an important story; 3) was made on a shoestring; 4) Leanne is an ace Director who deserves recognition, if you don’t believe me here’s a pic of her running down a beach to the bafflement of Anitha and Gary:

Click on the link below and vote for Leanne and ‘Three best friends,’ then ask all your friends to do so, and their friends etc, until the film wins. It takes less than 2 minutes, I know this as I just voted and I am pretty lazy when it comes to these things.

Deep in the depths of Maze Hill – an area of London I hadn’t heard of let alone visited – 3 talented actors + a producer and a Director invaded sound composer Tim’s bedroom to impersonate the BBC World Service for Pili to listen to on her radio.

Big thanks to Andrew, Katy and Lauren who should be snapped up by the BBC should Kirsty Wark, Mishal Husein or Justin Webb overdo it on some parliamentary canapés and not turn up for work the next day (and who could blame them, I’m surprised most journalists haven’t gone into post-Brexit hibernation until September). These talented three could switch from news presenter, interrogator, and academic expert with ease. I may ask them to stand in for me next time I get asked to go on the radio.

Thanks to composer Tim who recorded the excerpts with ease and helped out as Tom continues to work on the sound mix.

Blink and you may miss the small speaking parts (I say part, more a line) Leanne and I have on these recordings – our only cameo in the whole film. I thought I had got away with not being in the film and so secretly hoping my voice gets cut (apparently way too enthusiastic for reporting on the Bank of England MPC – this is not the first time I’ve been told this).

Thanks also to Hannah McNeish – a real journalist with a proper radio voice – for lending us her script, Phil Cowley for offering to play himself (but alas holiday trumps Maze Hill bedroom), and Gem Newby for trying to pull in her world service contacts. Turns out impersonating aunty is pretty easy when you’re a talented actor.

If you’re reading this in Africa, bored and want to do something entertaining: find a visiting European and serve them a nice drink with ice.* Next, watch them squirm in a way that is too polite to turn down the drink or question if the ice is made from bottled water (manners matter), but too worried to drink it (no-one likes cholera). Europeans fear ice. This is perhaps rational given the risk of water-borne diseases in sub-Saharan Africa (given Director Leanne’s work for WaterAid it would be remiss for me not to mention this) but it is also mildly amusing as you watch Europeans wrangle putting manners over the risk of cholera/dysentery/Hep A etc.

I was reminded of the fear of ice when Leanne recovered her lost photos and sent me the snap of DOP Craig and I enjoying a cool refreshing drink on location. We were filming in a dispensary that was attached to one of the oldest churches in East Africa. The church was on a hill surrounded by the beauty of Pwani. We had been filming all day and were hoping to shoot one more scene at dusk to get the sumptuous hazy light of the end of the day. Being the end of the day we were all tired, hot, sweaty and thirsty.

As with all locations, I had discussed the project and what we hoped to do with the priest in charge. As with the majority of people we encountered in Pwani, the priest was lovely, super helpful, and welcoming. He gave us a tour of the church and the big old German-built colonial building he and the nuns lived in. He then invited us to join him for a glass of refreshing, ice cold water. What could we do? We were thirsty, he was being kind, we wanted to be polite so we accepted the ice cold water. DOP Craig downed his as quickly as possible before the ice could melt – as pictured – only for the priest to then eagerly offer a refill. I decided to pace mine so as to avoid a refill but minimise melting. Both were daft options. We could have asked about the ice, but no, we were too polite/daft to do so.

For some reason the memory of the ice and the old church reminded me of Trevor Noah’s excellent sketch on colonialism. If you want to understand colonialism in 6 light minutes you can’t go far wrong with Noah. In six minutes he distils the violence and injustice of colonial rule while making you laugh. This is the great thing about Noah, you laugh along agreeing with what he’s saying, meaning by the end of his 6minutes everyone watching sees the absurdity of colonialism and think reparations may be a good idea. I don’t know why I thought of Noah’s sketch, perhaps ruminating on how it is a shame ice doesn’t beat gun powder or to poke fun at myself, but moreover I was probably looking for a reason to re-watch it and give you an excuse to do the same.

*Play nice and give em bottled water ice!

]]>https://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/08/09/fear-of-ice/feed/0sophierharmanPHOTO_20160302_144404-2A Bit of a Buzz and More Malariahttps://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/08/02/a-bit-of-a-buzz-and-more-malaria/
https://notanotheraidsfilm.com/2016/08/02/a-bit-of-a-buzz-and-more-malaria/#respondTue, 02 Aug 2016 09:00:00 +0000http://notanotheraidsfilm.com/?p=691More A Bit of a Buzz and More Malaria]]>

Thank you super clever and fantastically good-looking friends of PILI: since my call to social media action last week we’ve managed to create a little buzz around the film. The Facebook page is behaving like the most popular teen in school and has so far had (drum roll please): 835 likes, has reached over 2500 people, and the cover photo (what I like to call ‘Drama Tree’) had nearly 2000 likes. I’ve never posted anything on Facebook that was liked so much.

PILI’s Twitter page is a poor unpopular cousin in comparison, so if you’re roaming around Twitter do please follow and share! If you’ve not followed PILI on Twitter or Facebook, you can find the film’s pages @PiliFilm on Twitter and https://www.facebook.com/PiliFilm/

Given the film is not yet finished, or being shown anywhere, it’s super encouraging to get a little buzz going. Any buzz and press coverage is all help in getting attention for the film, getting it into a film festival, and then get a distribution deal to make some money for the Pwani players. With some luck, you can expect to see more articles on the film in the coming months.

The Pwani players are all okay. Some have had a rough couple of weeks. Sikijua has had Malaria and Sesilia said the harvest wasn’t as good as she hoped. She said she’ll just have to come to the UK with Leanne and I when we go back to Tanzania. I imagine one look at the cold and a Croydon waiting room and she may think differently (this is a joke blog fans from UK border agencies, Sesilia is happy in Pwani with her son, yeesh the political climate of the UK that I include this bracket). Sikijua is on the mend and Bello thinks she has found the school she wants to go to. Not long now and they will be able to see the finished film.